BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Thousands of Australians huddled in shelters Tuesday as torrential rains flooded cities and towns in the northeast, killing four people and prompting around 1,000 helicopter evacuations. With floodwaters expected to peak in…

MEXICOCITY – Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt will stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, a Guatemalan judge ruled Monday, in incidents that took place during the height of the Central American nation’s…

LONDON — Iranian state television said on Monday that the country’s scientists had succeeded in sending a monkey into space “as a prelude to sending humans.” Press TV, the state-run satellite broadcaster, said the animal was launched in a space…

– Ali Hassan spends his day sitting in a former mosque, now a ramshackle shelter for drug users, idly staring at his cell phone as he waits for it to ring. A gravedigger with more than 20 years of experience, Hassan is finding life in Mogadishu‘s…

Flames raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil, killing more than 230 people, stampeding toward a single exit partially blocked by those already dead. It appeared to be the world’s deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade….

Underground trains in Athens have resumed service following a strike that disrupted transportation in the Greek capital for more than a week. The workers had walked off the job to protest against planned salary cuts. Metro train operators returned to…

Women smoking nowadays are far more likely to die as a result of their habit than they were in the 1960s, according to a new study. Changing habits such as starting earlier and smoking more cigarettes have been blamed on dramatically increased risks…

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Germany, France and nine other euro zone countries could levy a tax on financial transactions from January next year if governments quickly agree its design, the EU’s tax chief said on Tuesday. “If there is a political will among…

Up to 5,300 soldiers are to be made redundant from the Army in the summer as part of the latest round of cuts to the armed forces, the Government has announced. Redundancy notices will be issued on June 18. Any personnel preparing for, serving on, or…

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A strong, shallow earthquake has rocked parts of western Indonesia, reportedly killing a young girl. The quake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 hit Aceh province around dawn on Tuesday. Local media said it was felt…

Doha has never been hospitable for contentious North-South dialogue. The negotiations on climate change that signed off in the Qatari capital in December 2012 have proved that again. And, of course, it is difficult to forget that the negotiations on…

DAMASCUS: A suicide car bombing in central Syria killed at least 30 people on Monday, a watchdog said, also reporting a powerful blast in Damascus, as the Arab League said UN efforts to end the conflict had failed to bring even a “glimmer” of hope….

— Leading candidates in Israel‘s election: _Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to return to power in Tuesday’s elections after nearly four years as prime minister. Netanyahu insists he has mobilized the international community against Iran‘s…

The players are not happy with the thought of the US Open finishing on a Monday – but talk of a boycott is fanciful Roger Federer will more likely swear on camera before these highly paid athletes withdraw their labour. Photograph: David Crosling/EPA…

Print this page Tweet After more than a week of hype, Lance Armstrong finally came clean Thursday night about not playing clean. The cycling legend confessed to Oprah Winfrey in the first of two OWN network interviews that he relied on a litany of…

LONDON — With more than 60 hostages still missing and many feared dead, Prime MinisterDavid Cameron told Parliament on Friday that the Qaeda-linked attack on a remote Algerian gas installation demonstrated the need for Britain and its western…

CAIRO: Thousands of supporters of Al-Ahly club demonstrated in Cairo on Friday to demand severe punishments for 75 people on trial for dozens of deaths in Egypt‘s worst football disaster. More than 70 people were…

Algeria‘s state-run news agency says the military operation at the natural gas complex where Islamic militants seized 41 foreign hostages has ended. But verifiabe information on the fate of all the captives is hard to confirm. …

Algerian forces launched a brazen air attack on suspected Islamist militants holding scores of foreign employees of a natural gas complex Thursday, killing kidnappers and hostages alike in what appeared to be a forceful message from Algeria that it…

DENVER (Reuters) – The Aurora, Colorado, movie theater where 12 people were killed in a shooting rampage at a Batman film last July was set to reopen on Thursday evening with a private “night of remembrance” for survivors and others connected to the…

Four decades after Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, many opponents of the decision are in a celebratory mood while those backing abortion rights are glum, feeling that momentum is turning decisively against…

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – A lawyer says authorities in Ghana have arrested Charles Ble Goude, the former head of a youth movement in Ivory Coast wanted in connection with violence linked to its disputed presidential election two years ago….

RUSSELS ‘ Committed to withdrawal in 2014, NATO’s Afghan strategy faces a serious test in coming months with the Taleban expected to step up attacks on local forces taking over security, a senior NATO officer said on Thursday. US-led NATO forces are…

Plagued by deep domestic problems, Barack Obama would love to outsource many international issues to the EU in his second term. The problem is no one knows whether Europe is up to the task, writes Ivan Krastev. Is the European Union willing and…

The Syrian army left at least 106 civilians dead in a 24-hour assault outside the city of Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday. The group said some of the victims were burned in their homes while others were shot or stabbed. By…

SEATTLE – The U.S.Army seeks to bar Staff Sgt.Robert Bales from using any sort of mental health defense to charges that he slaughtered 16 Afghan villagers last year because he has refused to take part in an official review of his sanity, according…

Pakistan‘s foreign minister has called for talks with her Indian counterpart to defuse military tensions in Kashmir. Hina Rabbani Khar‘s remarks came hours after the two armies agreed to “de-escalate” tensions after a meeting of…

For hours Tuesday night HouseRepublicans tried every trick in the book to either kill or severely cut the bill to funding for super storm Sandy victims. At the end of the night 192Democrats were joined by just 49 Republicans to pass the $50 billion…

photo: US DoD / EJ Hersom

OWN Releases First Look at Oprah’s Interview with Lance Armstrong

Lest we forget America’s other major sports scandal, OWN has posted a 16 second clip of Oprah’s interview with Lance Armstrong on YouTube.

The clip tells us pretty much nothing, except that it will feature the two of them, in the same room, alternately speaking and listening to each other, otherwise known as a conversation. The special will also air in two parts, which means two nights of Nielsen ratings for Oprah. What does this mean for you? It means the first night will be questions like “do you miss Sheryl Crowe?” and we won’t get to the good stuff until night two

BEIRUT: Twin blasts inside a university campus in Syria‘s largest city on Tuesday set cars ablaze, blew the walls off dormitory rooms and left more than 80 people dead, anti-regime activists said. What caused the blasts remained unclear. Anti-regime…

PARIS — On Jan. 11, French military forces entered Mali, taking and inflicting casualties in a war as sudden as it is important. Even at this early stage, broadly applicable lessons can be drawn from the conflict. Although the future course of…

MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) If you’ve ever wanted to know the most popular TV shows among your Facebook friends who are doctors, or wanted to see all the photos any of your friends have taken in Paris, the world’s biggest online social network has the…

Washington: American troops are determined to go to any nook and corner of the earth to destroy al Qaeda, Defence SecretaryLeon Panetta has said, asserting that Washington was considering providing logistic, surveillance and airlift assistance to…

PARIS — Despite intensive airstrikes by French warplanes, Islamist fighters Monday overran a strategic village and military post in central Mali, offering an indication that the war against extremists who have carved out a jihadist state in the…

Allahabad. Hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims led by naked, ash-covered holy men streamed into the sacred river Ganges on Monday at the start of the world’s biggest religious festival. The Kumbh Mela in the Indian town of Allahabad will see up to 100 million worshippers gather over the next 55 days to take a ritual bath in the holy waters,…

BEIJING – Mask-wearing Beijing residents endured a third day of pollution at hazardous levels on Sunday, as authorities warned that a thick cloud of smog may not lift from the Chinese capital until midweek. As the dense smog shrouded large swathes of…

Jaguar Land Rover is set to give the British carmaking industry a much-needed boosted by creating 800 new jobs at its factory in Solihull. Just two days after Honda sent shockwaves through the UK car industry by announcing hundreds of job cuts in…

EU Crisis Reminder: Why It Isn’t Getting Better, Implications for Stocks, Gold, the EURUSD and Other Currency Pairs and Asset Classes, and What To Do While doing research for our recent 4 part summary of 2013 market forecasts, I noticed that few…

PRAGUE (Reuters) – Former leftist Prime MinisterMilos Zeman narrowly won the first round of the Czech Republic‘s presidential election on Saturday but will face a strong challenge from the country’s aristocratic foreign minister in a run-off round….

Bolivia says that it has been re-admitted to the UN’s anti-narcotics convention after persuading member states to recognise the right of its indigenous people to chew raw coca leaf, which is used in the making of cocaine. Evo Morales, the Bolivian…

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – More than 30,000 people have fled during two weeks of fighting in Sudan‘s Darfur region, the United Nations said after some of the worst clashes between government troops, rebels and rival tribes reported there for months….

Beijing – A landslide killed at least 42 people including seven from a single family when it smashed into a remote village in south-western China on Friday, state media said. Another two people were sent to hospital after being rescued from the…

A 16-year-old student armed with a shotgun walked into class in a rural California high school and shot one student, fired at another but missed, and then was talked into surrendering by a teacher and another staff member, officials said. The teen…

photo: WN / RTayco

Rare snow shuts down Jerusalem

People play in the snow in front of the Dome of the Rock, inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, in Jerusalem’s

NEW DELHI: A defence lawyer accused Indian police Thursday of beating confessions out of five men charged with murdering and gang-raping a student in New Delhi, as they were due to appear in court again. Speaking before a hearing at which a…

Asteroid 99942 Apophis will come with 9.2 million miles of the Earth at 7:09am MST. Normally this would not be an observation of note, but astronomers will be paying close attention. Apophis has the potential of hitting the Earth. On April 13, 2029…

LAS VEGAS: Chipmaker Nvidia showed off its newest Tegra mobile processor, its next step in its expansion into tablets and smartphones and also unveiled a new hand-held game device. The Tegra 4 chip, with four central processing cores, will be…

At least three police personnel were among 13 suspected criminals who were gunned down in a shootout with Philippine security forces at a highway checkpoint, officials said Monday. Gunmen riding in three black SUVs opened fire on more than 50 army…

Two of the men allegedly involved in the rape and murder of an Indian medical student have said they are ready to turn state’s witnesses — apparently in an attempt to avoid the death penalty. Four of five men charged with the murder and gang rape of…

Syrian PresidentBashar al-Assad, sounding defiant, confident, and, to critics, out of touch with the magnitude of his people?s grievances, proposed on Sunday what he called a peace plan to resolve the country?s 21-month uprising with a new…

ISE, Mie Pref. — Prime MinisterShinzo Abe has renewed his pressure on the Bank of Japan to play a more assertive role in the economy’s recovery, raising the adoption of his proposed 2 percent inflation target by the central bank yet again. “As…

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A tsunami warning was issued for coastal areas of southeast Alaska and British Columbia after an earthquake of 7.5 magnitude struck in the Pacific Ocean on Saturday. The quake occurred…

GENEVA: The world’s largest and most powerful atom smasher goes into a two-year hibernation in March, as engineers carry out a revamp to help it reach maximum energy levels that could lead to more stunning discoveries following the detection of…

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Some world leaders live in palaces. Some enjoy perks like having a discreet butler, a fleet of yachts or a wine cellar with vintage Champagnes. Then there is José Mujica, the former guerrilla who is Uruguay’s…

NEW YORK — Three New York police officers are recovering Friday from gunshot wounds suffered in two separate incidents, including one on a subway train that began when officers stopped a man who illegally walked between subway cars. The gunman in…

The richest people on the planet got even richer in 2012, adding $241 billion to their collective net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 100 wealthiest individuals. The aggregate net worth of the…

MOSCOW — At the time, it seemed like a joke. PresidentVladimir V. Putin of Russia, at his annual news conference before more than 1,000 journalists last month, declared with a mixture of braggadocio and magnanimity that if one of the…

COIMBATORE: In 2012, Coimbatore district received the least rain in the last 2 decades. V Geethalakshmi, from the department of agro-climate, TNAU, told reporters on Wednesday that the rains the region received in 2012 was extremely disappointing,…

WASHINGTON — He was the first Jewish American named to a major-party presidential ticket, and he came within a single Supreme Court vote in 2000 of becoming the vice president. Years later, he was seriously considered for the same spot on…

SKOPJE (Reuters) – Several thousand people rallied in front of the headquarters of Macedonia‘s rightist ruling party on Saturday demanding the immediate resignation of Prime MinisterNikola Gruevski and early elections. The rally was the culmination…

TOKYO — As Japan‘s newly installed prime minister toured the crippled Fukushima power plant Saturday, he made it clear he is set to review the previous government’s plan to phase out nuclear power. Japanese officials say Prime Minister…

George H.W.Bush is an 88-year-old man with Parkinson’s disease who has been battling bronchitis-related complications in an intensive care unit since Sunday, so it is natural to wonder whether he will…

ISLAMABAD — The son of Pakistan’s former premier, Benazir Bhutto, formally launched his political career Thursday with severe criticism of the judiciary for the slow trial of his mother’s alleged killers. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, 24, delivered…

A federal judge has refused to recuse herself from the closely watched trial of jailed computer hacker Jeremy Hammond, an alleged member of the group “Anonymous” charged with hacking into the computers of the private intelligence firm…

The Pakistani Taliban have seized at least 22 men from a paramilitary force and killed several in attacks on two checkpoints in northern Pakistan. Pakistan has lost more than 3,000 soldiers in the fight against home-grown insurgents Photo:…

Steve Jobs was controversial in life, and now his high-tech mega-yacht is associated with a controversy long after his death. The former AppleCEO‘s ship was impounded in Amsterdam in the middle of a financial battle over a disputed bill. Phillippe…

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey has given approval for Israel to participate in non-military NATO activities in 2013, withdrawing an earlier objection driven by an ongoing dispute between the former regional allies, a Turkish official said on Monday….

Angry protests escalated into violence in India‘s capital on Sunday, after thousands of people gathered to demand justice for the victim of a recent gang rape in New Delhi and improved safety for women. Protesters flocked to the India Gate monument…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The economies of China and the U.S. have become “interdependent and inseparable,” a top Chinese official said Wednesday after high-level trade talks which were being watched for signs of how the two powers will cooperate after their…

CAIRO – Egypt‘s state TV says Vice PresidentMahmoud Mekki has resigned. Mekki’s Saturday resignation was announced with more than five hours to go of voting in the second and final phase of a referendum on a disputed, Islamist-backed constitution….

Los Angeles.South Korean rapper Psy’s infectious viral hit song, “Gangnam Style,” made history on Friday as the first ever video on YouTube to reach 1 billion views, adding yet another record to the song’s juggernaut journey into mainstream…

This could be one of the last things you ever read if the ancient Mayan prediction that the world will come to an abrupt end turns out to be true. But rather than getting down in the dumps about Doomsday, revellers are being offered the chance to…

Despite all the predictions of Mayan apocalypse, the world will probably not end by Saturday morning. How will the believers cope when life carries on? The clock strikes midnight, the hallowed date arrives and, once again, the apocalypse fails to…

Belgian politicians have denied reports Bernard Arnault, France‘s richest man, has had his attempt to obtain Belgian nationality derailed on the grounds he has not lived there for three years. Bernard Arnault – France’s richest man Photo: Getty…

Venezuela’s vice president said on Wednesday that the government is still aiming for PresidentHugo Chavez to be sworn in for a new term as scheduled next month, saying his condition has been improving after his cancer surgery in Cuba. Vice President…

JERUSALEM — Israel on Wednesday pressed forward with the construction of thousands of new homes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, part of a series of new settlement plans that have drawn worldwide rebuke, including from its closest ally, the…

Compare the rate of murder by gun in the United States to the rate in any other advanced industrial nation, and you’re forced to draw one of two conclusions: Either there are far more homicidal people in this country than just about anyplace…

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A bill to ban Americans from adopting Russian children won preliminary parliamentary approval on Wednesday in a retaliatory gesture for a U.S. law punishing alleged Russian human rights violators. Despite criticism of the measure…

According to detailed US military data disclosed recently suggest that the largest percentage of the insider attacks by Afghan security forces on their international counterparts are probably stemmed from personal motives rather than enemy…

South Korea has made history by electing a female president for the first time. In a hard-fought race, conservative ruling party candidate Park Geun-Hye won with 51.6 percent of the vote over left-leaning opposition candidate Moon Jae-In. who scored…

WASHINGTON _ The Connecticut congressional delegation joined President Obama on Tuesday in endorsing a new federal ban on assault weapons in the wake of the Newtown school massacre where a 20-year-old man used an assault rifle to murder 20 children…

BANGUI/N’DJAMENA (Reuters) – Chad sent troops into neighbouring Central African Republic on Tuesday to help the government there stop a rapid advance by rebels that risks sparking a new spiral of violence in the mineral-rich nation. The rebels killed…

It was no minor achievement, capturing the Near-Earth ObjectToutatis, a massive asteroid hurtling through space just over 4 million miles from Earth, on video. But imagine the deflation of the scientists that put together the video (actually a…

A pair of NASA spacecraft crashed into a mountain near the moon’s north pole on Monday, bringing a deliberate end to a mission that peered into the lunar interior. Engineers commanded the twin spacecraft, Ebb and Flow, to fire their engines and…

A WAVE of attacks targeting both Iraqi security forces and civilians have killed 48 people, in a second day of deadly violence ahead of the first anniversary of the withdrawal of US forces. Monday was the deadliest day in Iraq since November 29, when…

A day after called for “meaningful action” to prevent mass shootings like the one that left 20 children and six adults dead at a elementary school, leaders across and Connecticut called for stricter gun control legislation. “We should be able to come…

THE Ukrainian parliament has voted to reinstate its prime minister after dozens of opposition and pro-government lawmakers brawled for a second day in the chamber notorious for its fisticuffs. Newly elected world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko…

Brazilian authorities on Thursday began investigations into allegations that security personnel beat members of a visiting Argentine football club at the halftime of the Copa Sudamericana. South American football officials described it as the most…

LATEBBC presenter Jimmy Savile is a suspect in 199 crimes, including 31 allegations of rape, police say, adding that the scale of his alleged crimes is “unprecedented” in Britain. Ten weeks after Scotland Yard began investigating claims…

A gunman opened fire inside an Oregon shopping mall on Tuesday in the middle of the busy Christmas shopping season, killing at least one person before the shooter was “neutralized,” police said. The shooting at the crowded mall in the…

Egyptian PresidentMohammed Morsi will attend Wednesday’s national unity talks proposed by the military, officials confirmed on Tuesday, as rival protests for and against the government’s new constitution continued to grow. By FRANCE 24 (text) …

After fighting her disease with chemotherapy for almost two years and suffering two relapses, the young girl “faced grim prospects,” doctors at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said. So in February this year they agreed to take her on in an…

By Hamza Hendawi and MaggieMichaelAssociated Press Comments Cairo — Thousands of opponents and supporters of Egypt‘s Islamist president staged rival rallies in the nation’s capital Tuesday, four days ahead a nationwide referendum on a…

Bamako – Mali‘s prime minister was forced to resign on Tuesday by the soldiers who staged a coup in March, complicating international efforts to help push Islamists from the north of the country. Once a beacon of democracy in West Africa, Mali has…

GAZA, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) — The politburo chief of Islamic Hamas movement Khaled Meshaal on Monday concluded a four-day visit to the Gaza Strip, the coastal enclave which Hamas has been controlling since 2007. Meshaal, along with two members of Hamas’…

New technologies, dwindling resources and explosive population growth in the next 18 years will alter the global balance of power and trigger radical economic and political changes at a speed unprecedented in modern history, says a new report by the…

Geneva. Atheists and other religious skeptics suffer persecution or discrimination in many parts of the world and in at least seven nations can be executed if their beliefs become known, according to a report issued on Monday. The study, from the…

HUGOChavez has anointed a burly former bus driver as his successor – appearing to accept for the first time that his tumultuous, 14-year rule of Venezuela may be coming to an end. The leftist President, suffering a recurrence of his cancer,…

A pick up in China’s factory output and retail sales growth to eight-month highs suggested a revival in the world’s second-biggest economy is deepening and boosted the chances for stronger-than-expected exports figures on Monday.

CARACAS, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) — Venezuelan PresidentHugo Chavez said Saturday he will have to undergo another cancer operation in the coming days in Cuba. “It is necessary for me to have a new intervention in the coming days,” Chavez said in a televised…

Voting is due to get under way in parliamentary elections in Romania. Opinion polls suggest a win for the governing centre-left coalition led by Prime MinisterVictor Ponta. But the result could trigger renewed political instability as Romania…

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has backed down in a dire political crisis marked by weeks of street protests, after the powerful army gave an ultimatum to him and the opposition to sit down for talks. But it was not immediately clear whether his…

MOSCOW — U.S.-Russia ties have again plunged into acrimony amid disputes ranging from disagreement on to Russian President ‘s clampdown on dissent. A U.S. bill intended to lift Cold War-era trade restrictions but also containing sanctions against…

BAGHDAD — The lone Syrian rebel group with an explicit stamp of approval from Al Qaeda has become one of the uprising’s most effective fighting forces, posing a stark challenge to the United States and other countries that want to support…

JOHANNESBURG: Nelson Mandela was admitted to a hospital in Pretoria Saturday to undergo tests and was said to be doing well, the South Africa government said. The 94-year-old former president and anti-apartheid icon was admitted for tests “consistent…